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The Explorative journey

There is a range of additional possibilities beyond the 'musical' or 'rhythmical' elements of a B3 garden.

Sound texture and sound timbre are elusive qualities of sounds to describe yet they are those by which we separate or define sounds.

Sound is described in many ways, high and low, loud and quiet are the common descriptors but what about sounds that are spiky, round, flowing, jangling... sounds that people perceive as colours or as specific resonances within their bodies, what about sounds that you can't hear but can feel or see?

For many sounds even description is a challenge, onomatopoeic sounds are examples where the sound becomes the description, yet if we struck two differently composed items side by side, our ears can make the discrimination and in many cases, even the untrained ear can identify material, shape, size and striking implement.

With particular emphasis for schools, consideration should be given over to explorative artifacts, items that can be investigated sonically to a greater or lesser degree. This can be as simple as differently-textured panels for rubbing & tapping or can be as multi-function as the Udu drum seat, it can be chains to clank or notches on a panel that play a rhythm when crossed, grooves cut or ridges raised in the playing area that sound rhythmically when a stick is dragged across them A fence that has rhythmical positioning of gaps or added features such as chime bars.

In many cases you don't need special equipment to provide many of these functions, a look around you will provide many items that can be used for sound exploration as you can see from the image above left which was Paul's 'kit' for a junkmusic workshop. You will see that it does include the kitchen sink. The image on the right shows one possible use of a kitchen sink where I attached a vacuum hose to a diver's face mask strap and played it like a didjeridu.